(i) Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus.
(ii) Related Art
An electrophotographic process for forming an image, for example, includes charging the surface of an image holding member, forming an electrostatic charge image on this surface of the image holding member on the basis of image information, developing the electrostatic charge image with a developer containing toner to form a toner image, and transferring and fixing the toner image to the surface of a recording medium.
Japanese Laid Open Patent Application Publication No. 2007-047450 discloses a fixing device that thermally fixes an unfixed image formed of a toner containing wax by transporting a transfer material having the unfixed image to a fixing nip part formed between a pressure member and a fixing rotational body that has been heated and that comes into contact with the toner image on the transfer material for the thermal fixing and then nipping the transfer material; this fixing device includes a cleaning unit disposed upstream of the fixing rotational body in the rotational direction thereof to remove the dirt on the surface of the fixing rotational body and a wax uniformizing member that is disposed downstream of the cleaning unit and upstream of the fixing nip part in contact with the fixing rotational body, the cleaning unit has a cleaning rotational body being in contact with the fixing rotational body and a cleaning member being in contact with the cleaning rotational body, and the surface roughness Rz of the wax uniformizing member is smaller than the larger one of the surface roughness Rz of the cleaning rotational body and the surface roughness Rz of the cleaning member. Japanese Laid Open Patent Application Publication No. 2007-047450 also discloses an image forming apparatus having such a fixing device.
In the case where a toner image is formed of an electrostatic charge image developing toner (also simply referred to as “toner”) having toner particles containing a release agent with a low melting temperature (for example, release agent having a melting temperature of 100° C. or less) and where the toner image is fixed with a fixing unit including an endless member to be heated, a first heater that is disposed in contact with the inner surface of the endless member to be heated, and a second heater that is disposed downstream of the first heater to additionally give heat to the endless member to be heated, particles derived from a vaporized release agent and having a size of 100 nm or less (namely, Ultra-Fine Particle, also simply referred to as “UFP”) are likely to be generated in the vicinity of the second heater. The generated particles are discharged to the outside of an image forming apparatus in some cases.